So why a studio record now,
after 20 years?
I just got off my lazy ass and
made a record—which doesn’t
make for an exciting interview
quote, but that’s what happened. Things just lined up
and it seemed like the right
time. I wrote six or seven new
songs and co-wrote with Jack,
[producer] Larry Campbell, and
[mandolinist] Barry Mitterhoff.
We were thinking about making the record ourselves, but
Red House Records said they
wanted to do it, and Larry said
he’d produce.
thing he said is, “I like having
written songs, but I hate writing
songs.” Once I start a project,
the songs flow pretty easily,
but I’m such a procrastinator
that I need deadlines for me to
write. We committed to doing
this record, and in the process
we wound up with built-in
deadlines. I had one song, and
then as deadlines approached, I
started collaborating. I’ve never
collaborated on this level before,
and I had a great time doing it.
It was a growth spurt—a really
late-in-life growth spurt.
“Everyone worries about whether the guitar
has a mahogany back or a rosewood back,
but maybe it’s about your beer gut pressing
on the guitar’s back.” —Jorma Kaukonen
me—I’m not comfortable in
that zone.” For whatever reason,
the songs that Larry, Jack, and
Barry brought around this time
flowed in an organic way. We
were all on the same page of
vision and poetry, which made
it very easy for me to work
with. It was like having a bigger
brain [laughs].
Given your lengthy discography, I don’t think the word
“lazy” is quite apt.
My friend [guitarist/singer/
songwriter] Chris Smither is
full of witty aphorisms, and one
So, as far as collaborating, you
decided to make a change and
see what would happen?
I have lots of friends who write
songs and I’ve had the opportunity, but I haven’t done it
before. In the past, I’d look at
somebody else’s song and say,
“I like that, but that’s not really
What’s the key to good
collaboration?
First, you have to be friends.
The other thing is that you
can’t be self-conscious about
putting yourself out there.
We recorded a song, “Angel of
Darkness,” that Larry wrote a
verse and a chorus for. It was
about a woman who had been
abused. He asked me to write
the rest of the song, but I didn’t
really pay attention to what
he had written, and the lyrics
I wrote were about someone
totally different. I wrote about
the wrong woman! So I had to
get to know the woman in the
song and write from her point
of view. You have to pay atten-
tion to what the song says—
and you have to be able to not
feel like a moron if you’re called
out for not catching the song’s
original intent.
